


Lost in Miscommunication

by Tormented_Gale



Category: Tales of the Abyss
Genre: Angst, M/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-01 17:18:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2781380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tormented_Gale/pseuds/Tormented_Gale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love, despite its strength, cannot always defeat self-doubt.</p><p>Tumblr Prompt: ”My Funeral” by For All Those Sleeping (Sync x Asch)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost in Miscommunication

"What?"

"This. We’re done. Over. Finished."

"What do you mean, ‘we’re done’? Since when do you just get to decide?"

He’s grasping at straws, fingers trembling in his gloves, and he can’t pull his emotional mask on fast enough to hide the bewilderment and fear. His heart is quickly being shredded into ribbons and stomped on for good measure, laid out before them in the middle, an unspoken sacrifice. 

The other’s face is hidden in shadow, but Sync knows Asch, knows every inch of that body and soul. He can see the tears hidden just barely behind half lidded eyes, the way that tongue darts out to wet too-dry lips, the hitch in every breath and every word that says ‘I don’t want to do this’.

And Sync will not let it go.

"You’re even against the idea!"

"This is how it should be, Sync. We should stick to what we know - killing and fighting."

"And everything you’ve said, everything we’ve done - it’s nothing?"

"It’s not nothing. It happened, it was what it was, and that’s it. There’s nothing else to be said, Sync."

Asch turns his back on him, but Sync is reaching out, grabbing his lover’s wrist, gripping it so hard that he thinks he might break it. The hand that slams into his chest knocks him flat on his back, and Sync groans at the sudden flare of pain. When his head clears, and he opens his eyes, Asch is gone.

— — —

_I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve this. In the end, I can only hurt you. Cutting you now, cutting me away, will let that wound heal. If I stay with you it can only end in your death. No one will mourn me, not now, now that you hate me, and I hate myself as much - no, more than you, so I know this… this has to be the way things are. I have to crush your heart to save you from me. It’s the only way._

_I can’t be the reason you die._

— — —

He supposes, in the depths of his blackened soul, he should have expected it. Asch, just like anyone else, used him for the physicality of it all, the emotional instability, the feel of another warm body. He was little better than a bed warmer, and now even that role was gone.

But it wasn’t hate left over in the place that his heart had once resided in. It was resignation, emptiness, a great blankness that nothing could fill or touch or reach. His fingers slip over his chest to hover over where his heart should be, and he is rather surprised to feel it still beat.

_You were the only person who -_

No, those thoughts are no longer worth thinking. If he is so worthless in Asch’s eyes too, then perhaps he was never wrong in the first place. Sync stands tall and empty and walks, one foot after the other, down a hallway that seems endless. Yes, he thinks, and smiles, and nothing reaches the dead, empty eyes as he breathes but does not live.

— — —

Asch’s betrayal is no surprise.

Sync feels nothing when Van rages against his former general, feels nothing when a sympathetic hand rests on his shoulder - Legretta? Largo? - and feels nothing when he is ordered to continue as planned. He nods, and barks orders, and fights. He feels no pain when his body is broken or as he heals.

It’s the mechanics wearing down, his body held together with a sigil not of his own choice, that begin to slow him.

— — —

When he next sees Asch, it’s like meeting a stranger for the first time. There’s no sense of familiarity or recollection, nothing of the body that held his so closely or the lips that spoke such tender words in his ear. Asch, though, reacts, and Sync simply looks back, lost and alone and everything proven right.

They fight, if it can be called that. Sync reacts and strikes and speaks, but it’s all a machine’s words and a machine’s actions, and the machine is breaking down with every false step and every missed hit. Eventually, when Asch’s sword pierces through his gut, Sync breathes out a sigh of relief, of finality.

No one will mourn him. No one will care. And he’s fine with it, because Asch too won’t mourn and won’t care. Sync raises his head as he kneels before Asch, the smile on his face for once authentic, and he stares into eyes that made his entire body feel warm and kept back the poison in his veins for a few precious moments.

_If these are my last words…_

"I tried."

_Then I want it known…_

Asch’s lips formed syllables, which formed words, which through the white haze of Sync’s dying mind wrote themselves like the last sentence in a book:

“ _You were enough. I just wasn’t enough for me._ ”


End file.
